Elsener: Ancilla Partnership Continues Marian Growth Plans
(photo courtesy of Marian University)
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe president of Marian University says the recently-announced partnership with Ancilla College in northeast Indiana is part of an ongoing business model to add more smaller campuses. The agreement brings the Marshall County college under the Marian umbrella, rebranding it as Ancilla College of Marian University beginning next July. “We see a future where you have a system of Catholic colleges and universities working together, one vision, one mission, played out and animated uniquely in various places,” said Dan Elsener.
Elsener and Ancilla President Michele Dvorak explained how the partnership will work in an interview with Inside INdiana Business.
“If you think of Marian University, we have a college of medicine, a liberal arts college. We have Saint Joe Indy; that’s a college within Marian University. Ancilla will be a college within Marian University; it just happens to be a little further away,” said Elsener. “They’ll be a full part of the Marian University mission and vision.”
Dvorak says the partnership comes with a certain amount of autonomy for Ancilla.
“Ancilla College of Marian University will continue to work as a college, very much in relationship to Marian University itself,” said Dvorak. “So the personnel there and the personnel at Ancilla College of Marian University will be in collaboration, will be in sync for the good of the populations here in northern Indiana.”
Elsener says the agreement has similarities to Marian’s partnership with Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer to create Saint Joe Indy, a two-year college based in Indianapolis. However the main difference is the deal with Ancilla will include a shared infrastructure and vision, but a unique community at both campuses.
“Saint Joe Indy was conceived as a result of an institution of higher education that had difficulty,” said Dvorak. “In this case, this was a planned approach both on the part of Marian University and the part of Ancilla College and it just so happened that during this planning and this time of finding out about who would be a potential really good partner, these two institutions emerged as going together and that there was a real in-sync kind of look to it and feel to it.”
Ancilla College of Marian University will officially begin operations on July 1 of next year. Dvorak says in the months leading up to that date, officials from both schools will work to create a seamless transition, particularly for students.
Elsener and Dvorak will further discuss the partnership on this weekend’s edition of Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick.
Elsener and Dvorak explain how the partnership will work.
Dvorak explains the benefits of the partnership for students.